Expert: Julia Booth - 7/5/2009

Question
I discovered this robin's nest in my blue spruce tree one day. After a week or so I didn't see the mother there so yesterday my sister and I took the nest cause the eggs weren't hatched yet. We put it in an old rectangularish fish bowl that i had and it fit then we put a blanket under it to support it. Took some of it and put it in the nest and around the eggs. we've had a heat pad plugged in to that we put over the blanket to keep more warm and I've been spraying the eggs with water! Is there anything I'm doing wrong or i need to add?

Answer
Given the period of time that the eggs went unattended, I seriously doubt they are viable. Birds will sometimes wait days before incubating eggs that they'd laid, but rarely a whole week. Normally a bird will lay one egg a day, until they've laid the entire clutch. Then they begin incubating them all at once, so they will hatch at the same time.

Unless you were watching the nest 24 hours a day, and were 100% sure the parents hadn't been back (because honestly the chances of Robin building a nest and laying eggs and then both parents not coming back is extremely slim) then you probably shouldn't have removed the nest from the tree.

With Robins, both the mom and dad participate in the nesting process, and are extremely protective, territorial and dedicated. Robins have been known to keep feeding their babies, even when they have already fledged, even when the mother is incubating the next set of eggs. So that means for them to have abandoned the nest, they both must have met foul play.

I'm not saying it's impossible. But in my experience, about 90% of the eggs people think are abandoned, actually aren't. Laws vary by state. But most have laws protecting wildlife. So unless you've got a permit to rehab, you're not supposed to remove nests with eggs in them.

Because the fact is that even if you did everything right, all the babies might die. Statistically, only one out of five of them will survive to breed next year. Their survival rate in the wild is much greater than that in the care of a human being. I know that makes me sound really crotchety and mean. But ethics requires me to tell you that.

All that aside, Robins are far from endangered and you obviously meant well, so I really don't consider it a criminal act. I think that not enough effort is made to educate people on these things. You did what made sense to you. The problem is that you're not a Robin.

You can try candling the eggs to see if they are viable. This is not a guarantee: http://shilala.homestead.com/candling.html

This is a great resource for the incubation process: http://www.wild-bird-watching.com/bird-egg.html

And if they miraculously hatch, here is a good resource for the fledging process: http://aviary.owls.com/baby_bird.html

Once again, I doubt the eggs are viable. But good luck.


Julia